The SkiBike Shop

Plan A for today was to meet Fabrice Mercier at Les Carroz around round lunchtime and get in a few hours on the slopes, ensemble, as they would say here. Fabrice is the cousin of Seb Baix one of the movers and shakers of freestyle skibiking way down South at Isola 2000. Fabrice lives nearby at Sallanches, but had already missed out on earlier jaunts because his young lad had caught a virus.

I had just arrived at Morillon and got my ticket when the phone rang, he was now going to miss today's ride because his wife was sick. Perhaps tomorrow things will be better? The morning was pretty still chill and crisp, so following the pattern of recent days I donned ski kit and had a quick run over to Flaine to see what conditions would be like. I think the warm weather and holiday traffic has really taken a heavy toll on the snow at Flaine. To my surprise the runs down to Les Carroz and Morillon were in much better condition. I was also surprised to find that some of the "difficult" red sections were much easier than the "intermediate" blues, presumably down to excessive traffic.

I returned to the car for a snack and change of sliding mode

Having fully scoped out the routes, I returned to the car for a snack and change of sliding mode. Once this used to take ages, but now everything seems to fall into place and the process only takes about 15 minutes.
I found the most enjoyable runs and spent the afternoon fully exploiting them in what was becoming a skibiker slush fest, for the record they were; Combe (Les Carroz), Marmottes (Les Molliets) and Sairon (Morillon) all flattering easy, fun blue runs.

On my way home I made a detour and checked out the location of the flat that will become the SkiBike base camp for a couple of weeks in February, more about this later. I am very much looking forward to being 15 minutes from the ski stations and not 1 hour and 30 minutes away in Geneva.

SkiBike base camp for a couple of weeks in February

Today was a rare rest day, a chance recuperate, put on the washing, empty the bins and take stock of my skibike stable. As someone who loves technology and engineering, I find it fascinating to see how different components behave, especially at their limits, including the weakest link, that is me.

The number one cause for me to crash is if the front ski "tucks under", this is followed by a "superman ejection" something bikers might call a "high sider".
It is usually brought on by a patch of exceptionally hard snow/ice, the front ski starts to radically understeer, then suddenly WHAM it flips up, the forks slide out and you find yourself eating a snow sandwich. You shake yourself down, say a quick prayer of thanks to Saint Don of Koski, force the front ski level and ride off once again.

This is one of the limitations of the original Alpine SkiBikes adapter, the concept of the pig tail sprung self-levelling ski is elegant, but on the slopes is, with the greatest respect to Matt Hanson, overly engineered.
I have been told that traditional skibobs had very limited axial ski travel, just a few centimetres and modern designs from LenzSport and Firem use mechanical stops to limit the rise of the front ski beyond a certain point, even simpler designs rely on just friction alone. On recent rides, I can now sense when it is about to happen, occasionally I can even stop it. As my riding progresses will I have to consider a more robust skibike arrangement or should I learn to fine tune my balance skills further?

Meanwhile my £4 bargain supermarket saddle was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with each ride, I thought it was just a bit of saddle soreness till I noticed how "nose up" it was. At first I thought that the seat clamp had slipped, but on closer inspection I could see that both saddle rails have bent. So smooth are the bends it looked like some fancy factory geometry at first. To ViaVelo's credit they didn't break, but then I only weigh 80kg, which hardly puts me in the heifer class.

ViaVelo SkiBike saddle failure - both saddle rails have bent

And what of the fragile and well past its sell by date component that is me? Usually the lower half of my body takes a beating, but on this trip it is all happening on top. My left hand has finally stopped aching from my nastiest crash on day one. I twinged my shoulder twice falling on SnowBlades when putting out and arm to stop the fall. My lower back is grumbling and wasn't helped at all when I was knocked of my skis from behind by an out of control skier.
With the unexpected spring conditions I am very relieved to have been wearing; knee and wrist braces, as well as a full face MTB helmet. Perhaps I need a carbon fibre suit of armour for next season?

I read ages ago about Thollon les Memises, a ski station high above the lakeside town of Thollon where you are able to ski whilst overlooking the glorious expanse of Lake Geneva or Lac Leman as the locals call it. Today was to be the day I would get to experience it. It is about 30 minutes drive from Geneva, next door to Evian les Bains, the town that gives its name to one of the most famous mineral waters in the world. It always seems odd to me that people would pay so much for virtually the same stuff as you can get from a tap or faucet for next to nothing, but "there's nowt as queer as folk" as they say in Yorkshire.

Similar to yesterday's trip to the Roc d'Enfer, the day began overcast and a bit gloomy, but as I drove steadily upwards to Thollon les Memises the sky cleared and sunlight began to seep through the murk.

You are able to ski whilst overlooking the expanse of Lake Geneva

The cost of a day pass was a paltry €19.50  the cheapest lift pass I have come across this season, remarkable value. From the village you ascend to snow level by an ancient four seater "bubble" lift. The interior smelled like it had been freshly hand painted and in a fetching retro shade of battleship grey too. It had very functional unpadded plywood seats. It all looking like something from a 1960's James Bond film, if Ernst Blofeld needed a bubble lift system, this would have been the one he would have signed the cheque for.

I hadn't seen the ubiquitous SnowScoot outside of any of the ski hire shops in town and the  chief liftie confirmed my gut feeling that such "Nouvelles Glisses" were prohibited here; today was to be another ski centric day.

I made my way around the runs on offer, of which there are a good selection. There is one large modern chairlift that serves as the infrastructure back bone with a few small, old fashioned ones acting as key links. A fair few drag lifts serve specialised areas such as the slalom area, some steep red runs and the snow park.

I surprised myself by attempting two of the steep reds pretty much straight away. The sign for the drag lift alongside the slope warned that the gradient was over 50% and the local ski clubs were holding a slalom competition on the blue run adjacent. Having managed to get my skibike down some pretty nasty runs recently, just getting me and my tiny lightweight skis down didn't feel like that much of a big deal. It was the ideal opportunity to work on my carving technique, something definitely clicked and for once it wasn't my knees. It was a great feeling to engage with the icy snow, I can see know why people rave about getting their skibikes to carve, it inspires great confidence.

I surprised myself by attempting two of the steep reds pretty much straight away

Having been over the same runs quite a few times I was eager to find a fresh area to explore. A study of the piste map revealed an interesting "back mountain" loop, similar, but smaller, to the one I tried at Roc d'Enfer yesterday. This turned out to be an absolute gem of a run.

It started steep and narrow, then opened out into a wider, but still steep, slope. It then narrowed right down to the width of a mountain road, following a cliff edge, before opening up again into a roller coaster of fast dips and bumps. The last section began to funnel down and leave you at the bottom of a gorge, miles from anywhere. It was so remote that the "difficult" drag lift was powered by a diesel engine. This pulled you along a level traverse and to the start of a charming cross country path through delightful pine forest. Lastly there was a small chairlift to get you back up the mountain and close to your starting point.
In the morning I hardly saw anyone, even at 11am I was able to leave fresh tracks. Furthermore the loop seemed to be the exclusive preserve of intermediate skiers and above.  Not having to worry about school groups or wobbly beginners and being able to go fast in safety was a delight.

The "difficult" drag lift was powered by a diesel engine

In conclusion, Thollon les Memises is a great ski station, the expanse on offer high above the town is an unexpected surprise. It would be brilliant if they could entertain skibikes, the Parchet chair lift would be the perfect uplift and would give access to a fair chunk of the area. Even the loop I enjoyed so much would be possible, providing you didn't mind hoofing the 100 metres or so that the drag lift provides for skiers.
Who knows what the future will bring, things have changed so much elsewhere.

I have had the Roc d'Enfer at St Jean d'Aulps on my "must try" list for a couple of years now. As I have been getting weary of crowds, I made a decision to visit this tiny isolated section of the Portes du Soleil domain. Furthermore the Roc d'Enfer has a unique twist on offer, the runs link together in such a way that you can do a full circuit right round the mountain and back to base.
To do this requires using a fair few drag lifts, so the skibike was out of the equation and it was planned to be a ski only itinerary.

It seemed like it was going to be a pleasant day, so I headed out around 8am. My route took me through Geneva and along the Southern shore of Lake Geneva or Lac Leman as it is know locally. The early morning sun illuminated the snowy peaks of the Jura mountains opposite, where I had made so many pleasant trips recently. At Thonon le Bains, a posh spa town, the road turned inland, heading through a series of deep gorges.

The atmosphere was gloomy and when I arrived at the ski station at St. Jean d'Aulps it looked bleak and misty. Undeterred, I got my ticket and headed up in the gondola, on arrival at the top station I broke through the low cloud to a perfect Alpine winter day, sunny and calm with a crystal clear blue sky.

Broke through the low cloud to a perfect Alpine winter day

Going round the loop took me a good couple of hours. Some of the runs heading back the other way looked particularly enticing, so I made a few detours to sample their delights. The snow was in wonderful condition and looked to have hardly been skied, it was nearly noon and I was making fresh tracks. Where was everybody? My only regret was that you can't bring a skibike up here, there was scope for a week's worth of potential off-piste trail blazing.

A lot of the runs were graded red (expert) and deservedly so. This area has many peaks and gorges and the majority of the runs are narrow and steep. Likewise uplift is by old style Poma button drag lifts that go off like a rocket, I think I managed to get some air on one of them. One zig zagged up an incline whilst another appeared to be climbing a 45 degree angle slope. Not a happy situation for a nervous skiers, but as I have managed to get me and my skibike up worse in Scotland, just being on feet was easy.

The effort is worth it though, some of the runs are 5km long and you really feel up in the back country, not on a busy motorway. The final run ended abruptly at a line of plastic netting, there was a sign announcing that skis had to be removed as there was insufficient snow cover. Luckily, it was only a few minutes walk back to the base station, I had visions of an hours treck in ski boots or having to wait all day for a bus.

Mission completed I still had a good few hours to spare, so after a quick pit stop at the car, I switched over to skibiker mode and headed back to the gondola. The lifties explained that SnowScoots could be used in the gondola only and could use the run underneath it. This run turned out to be another infeasibly steep and narrow red run, composed of re-frozen artificial snow, slush, ice, rocks and bare earth. It pretty much couldn't have been worse, on the upside few had skied it, so at least I didn't have to contend with mogul fields too.

I switched over to skibiker mode and headed back to the telecabin

I made it down once, then went back up to check that the first time wasn't a fluke. I contemplated a third run, but there was no pleasure in riding, it was just a technique challenge. I called it a day.

In conclusion the Roc d'Enfer delivered exactly the mini adventure I was expecting. If you can ski or snowboard proficiently then I heartily recommend giving it a try. To be able to bag another ski station by skibike was an added bonus too. At the moment the skibike options are very limited, but with better lift infrastructure and a bit more good will from the management there is great potential at St Jean d'Aulps and the Roc d'Enfer.

Roc d'Enfer - skibike options are very limited

Keeping in with the Jurassic theme, today I paid a visit to the Col de la Faucille, another smaller ski station nestled in a mountain pass on the N5.
It is a 20 minute drive from Geneva airport, just past the ancient town of Gex. The N5 provides quite a spectacular drive 3000 ft up the side of a gigantic escarpment with multiple switchbacks and hairpin bends.
On this fine sunny morning it was great fun thrashing up in 3rd gear, but to make the same journey on a wild and snowy night would be sheer purgatory.

On arrival I made a quick recce of the layout of station on foot and could see that the snow was rock hard and icy, even off piste had an evil sheen. As with other ski stations of the Jura, the majority, if not all of the runs are on the colder North facing slopes. I could tell that it would be a while before any sun would soften the snow.
So I invoked a SkiBiker SkiBike Blog protocol which had worked well in 2012, namely, to ski in morning and skibike in the afternoon.

The main uplift is by "Telecombi" an unusual chairlift and cable car hybrid, with one gondola per 5 or so chairs. According to a local it was brand new about 4 years ago and would represent a significant infrastructure investment. The chairs are large and detachable, so loading and unloading in safe and easy, unlike some I have been pitched off.
There are also a handful of drag lifts serving outlying areas and another chairlift which didn't seem to be working.

My first runs were bad enough on my little SnowBlades as I slid, banged and skittered about, all the while struggling to angulate my lower body sufficiently to get the puny edges to grip the slick surface. This would have been lethal on my skibike, possibly a traditional skibob, or the Firem VS would be the only models capable of getting a rider down slopes this slick.
Around 11:30 I started to feel some sections start to yield and become more enjoyable. On the next lift, I asked the lifties if one could use a skibike, they had no idea what I meant, but when I said SnowScoot they smiled and said it would be fine.

Ski in morning and skibike in the afternoon.

After a bite to eat and a change of sliding technology, I headed up the hill. The lifties didn't spot my bandolier, loop and carabiner safety leash and shouted after me. I made the run back down at a relaxed pace and made a point of approaching their cabin and showing them my system. They gave it a quick look over and seemed appreciative and satisfied. For the rest of the day, they seemed very at ease with my presence.

Although limited in scope, La Faucille is a pretty little ski station with nice views to the Alps in the South and the Jura plateau in the North. Both the lifties and the other snow enthusiast were friendly an completely unphased to share the lifts and space on the slopes. No doubt this situation is helped by the presence of an active and growing local SnowScoot club some of whom I keeping meeting. All in, it was a good day out and another new ski station to add to the list of skibike friendly resorts. The cost was a paltry €24, that's £20, what would that buy you back in the UK? An hour or two on a few hundred feet of badly maintained plastic?

La Faucille - views to the Jura plateau in the North

I was just seven years old and sick as a dog, the stifling summer heat and humidity, I had the whopping cough and I had it real bad.
It's just a bad cold, the boy will soon be over it.

Coughing at night till I vomited blood, couldn't eat or drink, just the coughing and the sickness.
A rushed trip to the doctors, hushed conversations between the grown ups, no smiles, needs penicillin.
Lying in my sick bed staring at reflections on the ceiling, on the radio they play "Summer Breeze" by the Isley Brothers on a continual loop it seems... "Summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind".

I awake, it is dark, vague muffled night sounds but inside my head the all pervading sound is a very high pitched whistle like the sound the television makes when there are no more pictures late at night and a tiny white dot remains in the centre of the screen. Tinitus, I still have it to this day, I don't normally even hear it unless I am highly stressed or it is exceptionally quiet, a bit of an affliction for someone who would earn money as a sound engineer.

Sound engineering is a much an art as a science, different engineers can work on the same mix, achieve different results and yet both can still sound good. As you tweak and tune the parameters you often sweep up and down, back and forth till you find the "sweet spot" where it all works best.

This morning I swapped over the Alpine SkiBikes foot pegs between the "old" black and "new" silver frame. I then took the silver frame up the local test hill nearby at Le Crozet and went for a few hours ride.
What a difference, yesterday I was afraid to push the skibike for fear of loosing control. But today, with the ability to grip the frame with my feet I felt totally at one with the machine, everything fell into place. I was in the zone, I had found the sweet spot, I didn't want to stop riding.... ever. I didn't need to go fast, I had the precision to place the bike into a skid, carve, side slip, stand on the pegs, go through bumps, everything, it all just worked, brilliantly.

I didn't need to go fast - it all just worked, brilliantly.

Fortunately Carl Day has a spare pair of Alpine SkiBikes foot pegs from his old DaBomb skibike project, he has promised to send them to me here in France. Then I will have 2 dialed in, fully working skibikes that I can trust. I have some people lined up for demo rides already, perhaps next week?

I have really been mixing it up today, my first port of call was a meeting at Annecy le Vieux. I was there to sign the contract and pay the deposit on a flat in Cluses that I will be sharing for a few weeks in February with my, soon to be retired, cousin Paul. To my own amazement I set the meeting up, via the telephone, in French. Then met and discussed the finer details, including how I wanted the bedding arranged. I have either done very well or will be in for a surprise in a few weeks time.

Annecy is a lovely old town next to a huge lake and surrounded by hills and mountains, a bit like a smaller version of Geneva, best of all it is only about 30 minutes from the ski resorts of the Aravis. So it was a brisk drive uphill to Le Grand Bornand, right past the Firem factory at Villard sur Thones with a skibike sign hanging from the side.

I have been really looking forward to getting my "new" skibike on the snow and riding it. It's not really new though, it's the original Marin East Peak that I converted way back in late 2009, then rode in Scotland, Andorra and France skibob style.

The cosmetics of the frame needed a little tidying up, so I sent the rear triangle to be blasted and powder coated. I put on new Suntour forks of the same type as I have already been using and a similar coil suspension unit at the rear. I put in an adjustable stem in order to get the same amount of rise that I am used to, although with a fair bit less reach. The sliding elements are second hand Head "Big Easy" 95cm skiboards in good condition.

The result turned out much as I was expecting, the ride is fine, the hard and undamped rear suspension is something I have become accustomed to. Being a medium frame, unlike my other skibike which is large, it felt more nimble. I immediately felt at home with the shorter reach and the slightly different feedback this creates.
The Head skiboards seem to have quite a forgiving nature with a delightfully smooth transition from grip to slip. Sadly there was one element that doesn't work and radically curtailed my test session.

My new old Marin based skibike - needs better pegs!

The skibike adapters are by Russian manufacturer Ski X Bike and are near identical to the Alpine SkiBikes adapters I have used for many years now, so no complaints there. But for your feet they come supplied with a pair of round knurled BMX pegs. I had my doubts about these, I tested this configuration with Tommy from BikerMads in Stockholm last year and found them to be very slippery in the snow. Annoyingly today was exactly the same, the pegs are sharp enough when dry to snag clothing, but the merest hint of frostiness and ice fills the grooves to leave a totally slick surface. This is worse than useless, as you have somewhere to put your feet, but the minute you need to apply pressure, your foot shoots outwards throwing you off balance. After a couple of wobbly moments at quite low speeds I lost all confidence and limped back to the base station. I will swap out these pegs for the Alpine SkiBikes design and try again, but this leaves me a skibike short.

So please if; Tommy at BikerMads, Serge at Firem, Martin at Bullskate, Thierry, Wayne or Carl read this and have spare pegs to sell or new products to test and endorse, please mail me as soon as possible. I am hoping to use the bike for demo rides next week, but couldn't take the risk of letting a novice on it in this condition and couldn't properly demonstrate riding if my feet slip off at every turn.


With the SkiBike disassembled and back in the boot, it was time for a spot more skiing practice to fill the afternoon. One advantage of this was that I was able to use the smaller chairlifts that Grand Bornand will not allow you to take a skibike on. One of these gets you to a wild "back country" area with a couple of gentle pistes that run for quite some distance. It was very chilling both spiritually and physical as a keen East wind had picked up and started to blow in cloud. There are also huge off piste opportunities in this area and there was powdery snow in abundance, what a joy this area would be by skibike, we need a skibiker blog helicopter.

Le Grand Bornand - The back country area

Today I wanted to test out my latest skibike evolution, the disparate collection of components had been rapidly assembled just before my departure, so I didn't want the first runs to be up some grand and inaccessible peak, what I needed was a local test track.

Le Crozet and Lelex is one of the closest ski stations to Geneva, just 15 minutes by car from the airport and is on the Jura mountain range. I knew that snow was expected but wasn't prepared for the high winds and near blizzard conditions at top station level. The winds had shut down all but two drag lifts, which laid waste to my skibike test plan.

I had been intending to do a little ski practice anyway, so donned my Raichle Flexon boots and trusty Saloman SnowBlades. There is great value to doing a bit of cross-training, certainly within the first couple of runs I felt grumbling from a whole different group of muscles. In spite of the Scottish conditions I persisted and really enjoyed the simplicity of just feet and skis without any contraptions to get in the way.

Looks photoshopped - Le Crozet in a blizzard

Tomorrow the forecast is for good weather, I need to visit Annecy in the morning, so might do my test at Le Grand Bornand in the afternoon.

Today was still balmy and warm with clear skies, up on the Jura mountains, my local snow gauge, it looks like the snow line is heading up to around to the peaks at 1300m or 4000 feet. In previous years it has been right down to the base about now. I saw some alto cirrus or mares tail clouds yesterday, often a sign that there is a change in the jet stream that powers the weather systems.
Much as I would still like to go out today, my hands are stiff, much aches and I have a fine display of fresh bruises to display, so I am giving my rattly old bones a chance to recover. The flat looks like a squatter hovel, so a little housekeeping is in order too. One benefit of the tidy up is that I have found my camera's USB lead, so I will be able to sort out some pictures for you.

Skibiking has been featured on evening prime time TV here, I have been promised a link so that I can see it, but for copyright reasons I won't be allowed to share it with you :-(
Furthermore, an English health magazine are to feature skibiking at Le Grand Bornand, although sadly not till autumn.

On our recent days trips it was interesting to see that the lifties are no longer freaked out by skibikes, let us ride alongside all the other sliders and allow us to demonstrate the best way of fitting onto the chairlifts. This is a massive improvement on the situation just two years ago when they insisted at one resort that it was just one skibike per chairlift. It is also interesting to see how other snow users no longer seem to give us as wide a berth, some cutting in dangerously close at times. For my part I have been riding over cautiously on the crowded slopes to avoid collisions, luckily I didn't have any, although I might have left some in my wake.

Have a Happy New Year SkiBikers there will be more to come in 2013.

Today was the last skibike ride with Carl Day as he will be heading back to blighty tomorrow. We started the day playing a game of catch up as I worked my way round the lift network with Carl about 15 minutes behind me at every link.

The pistes were just as busy as yesterday so we tried to pick out the lesser used runs and head off piste to the many open snowfields still on offer. As the day wore on the snow softened and had a lovely buttery quality, but there was always the danger of hitting one of the scraped icy patches just under the surface. You could see the caterpillar tracks in them, not good. This area badly needs a cold snap and a fresh dump of snow or it will be a very short season.

The day offered some great last day highlights; watching Carl emerge from a pisted tunnel spectacularly sideways, then later seeing him drop off a ledge at speed, become fully airborne, then land it without crashing. To say that he is happy with his new Lenz Brawler would be an understatement. That he has progressed so far in under two weeks of freestyle skibike riding is exemplary.

Sad though I am to see him go, I can look forward to some food, rest and a good lie in tomorrow.

Heading back to Morillon - last run of the day